


144 Freckles

by purple_bookcover



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ashelix Week (Fire Emblem), M/M, Past Lives, Soulmates, soul moles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27089353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_bookcover/pseuds/purple_bookcover
Summary: Each freckle is a kiss Felix has placed on Ashe's body at some point through their many, many lives together. One day, after many tries and many lives, he will kiss Ashe so many times that they are both complete.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 18
Kudos: 31
Collections: Ashelix Week 2020





	144 Freckles

**Author's Note:**

> Ashelix Week Day 2: Pining
> 
> This was inspired by a twitter post proposing that moles are places where your lover kissed you in a past life. Who better for this meme than Ashe, our favorite freckle boy?

Felix recognizes the man who sits down across from him. 

He shouldn’t. He doesn’t even know the guy’s name. This is all very sanitized. They introduce themselves with handshakes and business cards. Felix’s manager steps in to lay out the ground rules. 

“Let’s keep it professional,” the manager says. “Not too much about his personal life. Let’s just focus on the game, alright?”

The interviewer nods. “You’ve seen our question sheet already.”

“Yes, as long as we stick to that, this will go fine.” 

The interviewer shuffles his notes, settles in the chair. His silver hair is neat, but he tucks it behind his ear all the same. Felix’s fingers tingle in sympathy, as though they know that motion more intimately than the interviewer himself does. 

“What was your name again?” Felix says.

It interrupts the bartering between the interviewer and the manager. They look equally surprised that Felix has spoken. 

“Ashe,” the interviewer says.

#

**1 – 12**

In a past life, Felix is a hunter. Many of them are hunters. It is simply what is required.

He returns with a deer. Everyone eats well. 

He kisses the hands of the one who cooked the deer, kisses them precisely twelve times. Twelve kisses. Twelve marks. Twelve spots like the light that trickles between the treetops and leaves glowing patches on the ground.

#

Ashe twirls his pen idly. It seems like more nervous tick than anything else. He has a recording device set out on the table, yet he takes his own notes as well as he questions Felix.

It is nothing Felix hasn’t answered a dozen or more times already. “How did it feel to win?” “Were you confident going into the third set?” “Do you think injury will be a concern the rest of the season?” 

Felix answers as he always does, the carefully prepared responses his manager feeds him. He doesn’t mind. He’s no good at speaking anyway. He just wants to play volleyball. All this shit about interviews and photographs and appearing in public has never interested him. 

“What are you doing tonight?”

Felix blinks. That wasn’t part of the script. The manager notices. Felix notices. Ashe certainly notices, as though his own question surprised him. He’s flipping around that pen again, twirling it between deft fingers. Felix sees the freckles dotting his hands.

_Twelve._

He doesn’t know how he knows, but he’s absolutely certain. 

_There are twelve._

He forces his gaze up. Ashe might still appear professional if it weren’t for the faint brush of heat in his cheeks. Felix’s head swirls with vertigo, as though he’s remembering a dream while awake, reality overlaid with a hazy layer of dissipating memory, fog burning off in the sunlight. 

“Dinner,” he says. 

Ashe smiles. The manager sweeps in, ending the interview before it can become any more dangerous. But it doesn’t matter. He has Ashe’s card, secreted away into his waistband.

#

**13 – 47**

In a past life, Felix is a farmer. It is more efficient this way.

Many of them are farmers. They carve long, neat furrows into the earth, row after row taming the ground into something manageable.

There is a man in the next field over. He is strong. Felix watches him work sometimes, until the day their eyes meet and some gravity drags them away from the split open ground and into the quiet of the barn where Felix kisses down his neck, across his shoulders, down his back.

#

Felix dials the number on the card. Ashe picks up on the second ring.

“You actually called,” Ashe says.

“Of course.” Of course? 

“That manager of yours won’t be too happy,” Ashe says.

“I know,” Felix says. “Are you hungry?” 

“Yes.” 

There’s some extra inflection to that, some sort of heat, like the warmth that exhales out of freshly turned earth. 

Why is he thinking like this? Felix has never plowed a field in his life. Yet that’s the image that arises, so pungent it’s dizzying. In the swell of vertigo, Felix sees Ashe’s back, strong and lean in the sunlight, covered in little marks like that life-giving dirt is clinging to his skin. 

Ashe’s gasp clears Felix’s head. 

“I’m sorry,” Felix says, as though he has a reason to apologize, as though Ashe could see that image burning in his mind a moment ago. 

“There’s a place called Barracks,” Ashe says. “Have you heard of it?” 

“I think so.” 

“It’s good,” Ashe says. “Organic. Farm to table. All that. Meet me there?”

“Sure. When?”

“Now.” 

Felix checks the time. “I don’t know where it is.”

“It’s OK. Just get there when you get there. I’ll have a table.”

Felix agrees. They hang up. He searches for the restaurant and calls up a rideshare. He does his best not to think too hard.

#

**48 – 72**

In a past life, Felix is a soldier. 

They have already met. They could not avoid each other in the close and perilous quarters. Marching across the countryside, fighting at some lord’s behest, it has a way of tearing things down to their barest essence. 

Felix has lost track of where they’re marching or why. The folks who’ve amassed enough goods and enough power have divided up the land. Now, they fight with each other to claim additional scraps. 

Felix would say it is no concern of his, but as he lies under a thin tarp with Ashe, he finds he cares terribly, just not about the right thing. 

“I won’t let you die,” he says. He says it every time. So far it’s held true. 

Ashe doesn’t reply, just strokes his face. 

Felix leans close, kissing across each check in turn, pressing starlight into his skin before he moves down to Ashe’s neck.

#

The restaurant is not what Felix expects. For a place named for cold military housing, it is chic, modern, cozy, downright cute.

The tables are wood in warped shapes, as though the trees felled to create them were allowed to retain their swells and weave. The benches for seating are the same. The lights that hang from the ceiling are planters with vines and leaves drooping out of delicate metalwork. Felix supposes there is a bulb in there somewhere because the restaurant is bright, cheerful. 

The woman who approaches him wears a T-shirt and jeans. Aside from the apron around her waist, he can scarcely discern her from any other patron. 

“I’m meeting someone,” he says.

She waves and Felix steps forward, scanning anxiously. What if it was a ruse? What if it was fake? He’s mildly recognizable around this city. What if he gets stuck here dealing with strangers? 

Ashe waves from a table in the corner. Relief floods through Felix as he makes he way over and sits across from him. 

“You’ve been spotted,” Ashe says, looking at something over Felix’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to know,” Felix says. 

Ashe laughs. Not the response Felix would have expected, yet he finds the sound sets him at ease. It’s light, unburdened and most of all familiar. Why? Why is everything about this guy so familiar? 

Felix orders something he’s never heard of, but that Ashe assures him he’ll like. How would he even know? Yet when it arrives it smells and looks incredible. He’s hungry from the match still and devours something that resembles a taco, but somehow requires a knife and fork. Felix doesn’t care. It’s good and it’s filling and the spiked lemonade in a mason jar that he ordered alongside it settles a pleasant buzz through Felix’s body. 

He doesn’t realize how relaxed he is until he catches himself watching Ashe laugh. His cheeks light up, the marks scattered across them like seeds in a field bright and swimming. Despite the meal, Felix longs to taste each one. His stomach grumbles.

“Hungry for desert?” Ashe says. 

In a sense. 

Felix catches himself before he can say something stupid. “No.”

“Oh, but they have really good deserts here,” Ashe says. “They make these little tarts that are, like, the size of your palm, but they’re so good.” 

“I’m not really...” He trails off. Ashe looks so excited about the tarts or whatever. 

“Let me guess,” Ashe says. “Not a fan of sweets?”

Felix shakes his head. There’d be no point denying it. 

“That’s alright,” Ashe says. “Maybe I can convince you some other time. I probably had too much already.” 

There’s a finality in that. Ashe is inviting him to end it, giving him a chance to flee. Felix sees his throat bob as he swallows, the freckles along it shifting like a mirage. 

No, this is real. This is real and Felix doesn’t want to wave it away so hastily. 

“What about a drink?” he says. 

They’ve each had one with dinner. It’s not an unreasonable segue, Felix hopes. 

“That’d be great,” Ashe says, “but I kinda blew my budget on the meal. Journalism isn’t exactly lucrative.” 

A pang of regret twists Felix’s stomach. Of course it doesn’t pay. He wasn’t even thinking about that. He went right from being a well-off kid at a fancy college to a professional athlete. He’s _never_ had to think about it. Fuck, he’s an idiot.

“I have stuff,” he says and once again, he isn’t thinking. He’s speaking before his brain can scream at him that he’s being way too forward, way too aggressive for a first date (is this a date?), and he’s probably scaring Ashe away. “I mean, sorry, I just mean I have drinks and stuff, but that’s probably weird to even say. I … maybe some other time.” 

If Ashe is put off, the quiet smile on his face does not reveal it. “I’d love to come by for a drink, if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t want to impose.” 

Felix can hardly speak around the lump that leaps up his throat. “I live alone—I mean, you wouldn’t be imposing because … no roommates or … anything.” Gods, why is he still talking? 

“That sounds great,” Ashe says. “I took the bus here, though. Do you mind?”

“I can just get a car,” Felix says. “It’s not far. I was going to anyway so it really doesn’t make a difference to me.” 

Ashe hesitates, looking like he wants to refuse the free ride. Felix hopes he’s set out enough excuses for him to accept. It feels like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff, flailing his arms for balance, desperately hoping to keep this going for as long as he can. 

“Alright,” Ashe says.

#

**73 – 105**

In a past life, Felix is a duke. 

He never wanted it, but circumstances conspire to kill both his father and his brother, leaving him the next logical candidate for the task. Perhaps he should have refused anyway, let this little territory fall under its own weight. 

But he didn’t. So he’s here, riding in a carriage through the streets, chin perched on his hand as he watches the little homes and shops roll by the window.

The carriage stops and the driver opens the door. Felix steps out and into the florist's shop. He doesn’t need to be the one who picks the arrangements for the upcoming reception, but he insisted on it anyway. His father’s official florist trails him, nervous and cringing, probably bracing to gently correct all of Felix’s terrible choices in vegetation. Felix doesn’t care. He just wanted an excuse to leave the castle for a day, to do something more active than listen to petitioners and decide whose sheep wandered into whose fields. 

The shop owner is so distracted by the plant he’s trimming that he doesn’t notice Felix enter. He’s crouched down before the plant, speaking softly to it, almost … is he singing? It’s so pleasant Felix doesn’t want to stop him, but the duchy’s florist clears her throat and the shop owner stands up with a jerk, actually squeaking in surprise when he sees Felix standing there. 

“M-m-my lord,” the shop owner says. 

Felix waves aside the title. “Tell me about that plant you were tending,” he says.

The shop owner relaxes, a smile spreading across his face. He talks for too long, but Felix isn’t listening from the start. He finds he just wants to hear the man’s voice. 

“May I purchase it from you?” Felix says.

“Oh, why, certainly, my lord,” the man says, “but this one isn’t quite ready yet. If you please, there are others in full bloom that would be much more suitable.” 

The man starts toward a back room. Felix follows, putting up a hand to stop his entourage. He isn’t sure why he does this and neither are they. They protest, but Felix insists, throwing around the authority of his title. At least it should be good for something. 

It is in the back room of the shop that Felix discovers the marks all over the florist’s body. Pressed against the wall of his store, the florist gasps in startled breaths as Felix traces new trails down his chest.

#

The rideshare arrives quickly, which is a good thing because Felix is beginning to wonder when and how he lost his mind. Every second spent shifting from foot to foot outside the restaurant is another second of doubt and confusion and head spinning uncertainty. What is he doing? Something like this could end up in the papers, and not merely because Ashe himself is a journalist. Felix isn’t any kind of household name – except in this city. He was already spotted in the restaurant and now here he is, obviously sliding into the back seat of a rideshare with a strange man.

He gives the driver the address. The man doesn’t seem to react to it, or Felix, which is perhaps a good sign. Maybe he doesn’t care. It’s not like this is anything salacious. He’s allowed to get a meal and a drink with a … friend? Gods, what is this?

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve been to this part of town before,” Ashe says as the car weaves deeper into neighborhoods near Felix’s. 

They pass florists and coffee shops and niche little boutiques. It’s cute, Felix supposes, though he’s more interested in watching Ashe than anything rolling by the window. The top button of his shirt is undone. Felix didn’t really notice while they ate, but he notices now, with Ashe beside him in the car, heading toward his apartment. It allows a glimpse of the skin at his collar and even here there is a mark. Felix is sure he could follow them down, could retrace his own steps over the planes of Ashe’s chest and torso. 

His own steps? He blinks, trying to clear the memory from his mind’s eye. It clings tenaciously, an image of his own lips pressing those marks onto Ashe’s body like pressing flower petals against parchment, preserving their color and sweetness. 

The car stops. Felix pays and exits. He tells himself his legs are unsteady because of the drink at the restaurant, but even he knows it’s a lie. Ashe steps out onto the sidewalk beside him, gaping up at the apartment building. It’s never looked like much to Felix, but Ashe is clearly impressed. His eyes trace the gold lettering on the sign: _The Duchy_.

“Do you want to come inside?” Felix says. 

Ashe startles as though waking from a dream. “Yes, definitely.” 

Felix offers his hand. Ashe takes it, his skin cool. Felix is seized by the desire to rub his thumb over the freckles along the back of Ashe’s hand, the marks now within reach, but he resists, leading Ashe inside.

#

**106 – 127**

In a past life, Felix is the son of a wealthy man. He does not know when his father became wealthy. The trail is lost somewhere in history. 

What it means today is that Felix must attend a party he hates, must stand in a stiff, uncomfortable suit and hat and embroidered vest under chandeliers scorching in their brightness, must sip champagne to conceal the scowl on his lips. 

He has heard the conversations around him a dozen times, a hundred. They echo in his mind, but at least it means he need not pay attention in order to respond on cue. 

A waiter drifts by carrying a tray of petite deserts. Felix hates sweets, but watches the waiter anyway. There is something about his silver hair, about his placid smile, about the softness of minty green eyes. 

Felix takes a desert, merely to pause the waiter for a moment, to see if what seizes his chest is echoed in the waiter as well. 

It is. 

In the pantry behind the kitchen, Felix drops to his knees, kissing his way up the waiter’s legs.

#

Felix unlocks the door to his apartment and shows Ashe in. Ashe gapes just as he did at the entrance to the building. Felix cringes inwardly. He knows it’s a large apartment, especially for just one person, but it gives him some privacy, a space away from interviews and cameras and autographs.

“It’s really nice,” Ashe says.

“Thanks,” Felix says. “Can I get you something?”

“Oh, right, the drinks.”

Did he forget? That was the entire pretense for coming here in the first place. Something flutters up Felix’s stomach and into his throat. A buzz of energy forces him to move and lead Ashe to a cabinet in the living room displaying an array of liquors. It’s not all fancy shit – Felix vastly prefers simpler drinks – but an old fashioned tastes better with descent quality whiskey instead of supermarket swill, so there are certainly some things on that shelf Ashe has every right to gasp at. 

“Oh wow,” Ashe says, selecting a whiskey Felix is particularly fond of. “I’ve heard of this stuff, but I’ve never actually tried it.”

“Let’s use that then. How do you like your whiskey?” 

Ashe almost looks like he might drop the bottle. “Oh, no, I couldn’t. This is...”

“I’m either going to drink it alone or drink it with you, so it’s getting used either way.” 

Ashe hesitates before nodding and handing over the bottle. “Alright then. Make me your favorite.” 

Felix takes the bottle to the kitchen while Ashe remains in the living room. The apartment is open, so even while Felix adds bitters and cherries to the drinks he can see Ashe lingering by the massive glass doors that lead to the balcony. The lights make Ashe a slim silhouette, all black and white like a waiter at some exclusive party. 

Felix nearly drops the measuring glass of whiskey as that image strikes him. He sees himself on his knees, sees marks peppering Ashe’s legs. 

He shakes his head, finishing with the drinks. Felix carries them out to the living room, handing Ashe his. They remain at the windows, gazing out at the city beneath them. As night deepens, lights flicker on, a field of freckles stretching to the horizon. 

“I’ve never seen the city like this,” Ashe says. 

“Really?” 

He nods. “I mean, I did have to do this story one time about a hot air balloon festival, but that was during the day. It’s not really the same.”

“I’ve never been in a hot air balloon,” Felix says. 

“Oh, it’s beautiful. Kind of terrifying, but still beautiful.” 

Felix can sympathize with that. Something about the quiet man beside him is both as lovely as the heavens prickling the dark and as terrifying as the fathomless darkness of the universe between them. Felix almost drops to his knees right then, prepared to see if his gut is correct, if those flecks on Ashe’s cheeks extend up his legs. He doesn’t truly need the confirmation though; the moment he wonders about it he is absolutely certain the marks are there. He placed them there himself. 

Felix takes a drink. The burn of the alcohol helps to ground him, at least until Ashe looks at him and the world tilts again. The lights – both artificial and heavenly – wash over his skin. It’s corny to compare him to the starlight, but Felix can think of little else as the sight of Ashe’s silver hair and freckled checks washes over him. Truly, if there is one person who deserves the metaphor, it’s Ashe. 

Neither of them speak, but their drinks lower as they step toward each other. Felix falls forward and Ashe is there, ready to catch him.

#

**128 – 144**

In a past life, Felix is a businessman. This is not the life he chose, but his father is a businessman and his brother is a businessman and they are gone and there is only Felix left. 

So he is a businessman. He does not believe he is particularly good at it. He hands off much of the work to people better suited to the task, people who should probably be in the position he is in, if it weren’t for the accident of Felix’s birth. 

He does not realize he has stayed too late again until he looks up and the rest of the office is dark. Everyone has gone home, as they should. It is only Felix who is left here, trying to sort through emails and spreadsheets and meetings he barely understands. 

He rubs bleary eyes, sets aside paperwork and notes and grabs his coat and hat and bag. He can worry about it tomorrow. Or, more likely, his assistant can worry about it. He thinks again of handing her the entire company. She deserves it more than him; she actually cares about it. 

He’s still contemplating escape when he sees the thief. The man freezes. Felix freezes. They stare at each other through the hall. 

The thief reacts first, rushing at Felix, shoving him against a wall, putting a knife to his neck. Nothing but the man’s eyes are exposed, but the moment Felix meets them, he knows. 

“We have nothing,” Felix says. “There is nothing here. It’s just an office building.” 

“The plans?” 

That voice. It only confirms what Felix suspected. 

“Plans,” Felix says. “You aren’t a common thief.”

“I do what they pay me for.”

“So do I.”

The thief scoffs. His breath puffs against Felix’s face like perfume. Even with the mask, Felix can see a freckle just beneath the thief’s eye. 

“Come to my office.” 

The thief accepts the invitation. He removes his knife from Felix’s neck and that is when Felix knows the man isn’t going to kill him, that they’re both just strange pawns in some bigger game. 

In Felix’s office, he turns over the plans the thief is after. He doesn’t care about them, doesn’t care about the future of the company, the damn patent, share prices, none of it. All he cares about is the bare expanse of the thief’s arms and the marks he kisses along them, lights in the dark, touchstones to guide the way, a safe path to tread.

#

In this life, Felix is an athlete. He has money, some small amount of fame, a nice apartment and expensive whiskey and a bed large enough that when he rolls onto it with Ashe in his arms they can tumble over each other without any fear of hitting the edge.

Only the last bit of that matters, only the part where Ashe is here in his arms, in his bed, skin exposed to the moonlight filtering through the window. 

Night is not deep enough to hide the marks flecked down his body, though Felix does not need sight to find them. He laid this path himself, set each stone in place for his own feet to follow. There are the marks along his hands, the cascade tumbling down his back, the seeds scattered across his cheeks and spilling down his neck, where they meet the offering on his chest and torso, connecting to the flakes coiling up his legs. Finally, Felix takes him by the arms, kissing along each in turn, reliving the half dozen lives it took to make them both complete. 

It takes all night, retracing that long, winding path, reliving all those centuries together. But it is worth every moment. The breaths they gasp are memories sighing out, hanging like gauze, making the bedroom hazy and dreamlike. Felix does not miss a single one; he kisses all 144 freckles, 144 markers in the dark, 144 beacons glowing in the gloom, calling him home, guiding him through decades. 

Ashe is not starlight. He was wrong before, at the window, but he only realizes it now, with Ashe beneath him in his bed, eyes and bodies locked together. 

Ashe is the space between. Those marks that have pulled Felix through entire ages are not the stars, but the fathomless darkness that separates them. Entire galaxies exist in those dark spots. They’re terrifying and incomprehensible. They’re miracles. The starlight exists to limit them, to put some sort of order to all that vastness, but Felix just keeps falling. 

Even through so many lives, through so many spinning galaxies, Ashe is the only thing that’s been able to catch him. 

He catches Felix now, intertwines their bodies so those spots rub against Felix’s skin like they might flake off and mark him too. 

Ashe grabs him by the hair, looks directly into Felix’s eyes, voice echoing through a thousand lifetimes. “More,” he says. 

In this life, Felix retraces all 144 of his own steps.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!


End file.
